


the defender

by amandus



Series: a promise [1]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Dream Smp, Gen, No Dialogue, Poetry, dream apologists rise up, just a piece i wrote exploring dream's character, kind of, techno is only in it for a couple lines, the relationship tag is for a later chapter if you guys want it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:00:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28218099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amandus/pseuds/amandus
Summary: the sun rises and he is gone.
Relationships: Clay | Dream/Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF)
Series: a promise [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2067495
Comments: 5
Kudos: 89





	the defender

**Author's Note:**

> hi! i'm amandus and this is my first work on ao3 - i write widely, just never to an audience.
> 
> i hope you enjoy this. criticisms and positives are always welcome! <3

dream is the fear of the dark for many and the defender for few. little is quite known about him - to hear a voice not so singed in vexation, twitchiness in his step and an imprisoning way of gambit as if those he loves (if ever he does) are polished boxwood chess pieces encompassed in careful glass cases, is an impossible rarity. he plays with their eyes blindfolded and senses stripped, using them in stratagem because, sad but infinitely true, that is all they are to him. a game, until checkmate is reached. then, only then, does he break them betwixt his finger and thumb.

dream doesn't love, god, how could he ever? does a man who never smiles, avoids feelings like a coward, stays rowing in the same clockwork boat over murky waters laced with a choice to care, to protect, to forget, have such a capability? nobody thinks so - or perhaps nobody wants to, in case his irrationality isn't only physical. he forces his way into the mind and takes refuge on a pretty gold sheathed throne and waits. the game of patience is one of familiarity to him.

"nos autem qui sumus," is something he often repeats, aloud to those he has pulled by the neck in nooses, not tight but just so that it indents that fear of suffering, of a drawn out painful death.

we are who we are.

it isn't his own maxim, rather technoblade's. maybe they are both watching each other being silently throttled by emotions that threaten to spill, or maybe he just knows what pain lurks underneath dream's mask, both physically and metaphorically. when he first said it, spoke aloud in the thick pine forest just opposite his cottage, it felt like pity, stark and cold as if someone had thrown a bucket of ice water over his head. he is not easily scared and not by the man opposite him, eyes boring directly through the old withered mask that he worried may break like porcelain, but when the words washed over him again, this time lukewarm, he jerked. he doesn't see the brief flicker of concern in techno's eyes, the way a gloved hand reaches for him. he turns, and he runs, away from the source of his only fear.

dream is so copiously terrified of feeling. of love. he wills to sit in the snow and watch it melt on numb blue fingers until he can't even feel his own body. and he feels, greatly so, more than the average. his heart thrums with blitheness and pride at the sight of the slow mending l'manburg, eyes soften towards his friends, stifles a laugh at antics, but they never see it. sometimes he forgets he wears a mask, forgets too easily.

he acts as he should - a cold-blooded leader, a manipulator, an implementor of terror. then, when the old oak doors of his home swing shut and click promisingly, a gentle whisper that nobody can hear you now, dream, you're safe, you can cry, he does. he sobs into his bedsheets and begs to stop his harming. he doesn't want to hurt. bile creeps up his throat every time someone flinches if he moves too fast, too close, if he even imagines tommy's eyes wide with fear and haunt, muted pleas for help.

then, when his eyes are red raw and breathing laboured, he sleeps, knowing he will not live out the same vulnerability as he does in his musty attic room in the morning, will not stop the pain he wrenches, won't make promises he can keep.

the sun rises and he is gone, an embodied icarus with blackened broken wings.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading, it means the world to me.
> 
> criticisms and positive are always welcome! <3


End file.
